Four miles

I got out early this morning, before dawn, to do my "long" run for the week of four miles, choosing to do the hilly route I did on Saturday which proved to be beyond my current conditioning because I had to do two walking water breaks then when I reached the summit of the two long sharp hills on the route where the trail rises to an overpass over I-66.  Today I kept it slow and steady, with my eyes screwed into the ground as I ascended each hill, and completed the run without walking in about 51 minutes.

PDS (pretty damn slow) but I got 'er done.  I started at 5:55 am and was on my way back before the sun came up, and I was treated to a spectacular view from the top of the last hill of the ascending sun as it started to rise above the horizon.  I had to wait another twenty minutes till I got home to fetch my my camera to record it and by then the sky had lost its multihued coloring but it was still pretty even so.

I plan to do three miles on my next run so that will give me ten miles for this week.  My ankle hurts and my legs are  sore but I'm starting to feel fitter.  It's been three and a half months since I started coming back and I get more motivated to keep at it each week.

I'm going to stay at my current level for a couple of weeks to try to "lock in" my current, slightly improved conditioning and hopefully lose another couple of pounds to slowly make my running more nimble and less ponderous.  Better times will come.